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Who's Who - Otto von Bismarck

Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898), born on
April 1, 1815 at Schönhausen, is considered the founder of the German
Empire. For nearly three decades he shaped the fortunes of Germany,
from 1862 to 1873 as prime minister of Prussia and from 1871 to 1890 as
Germany's first Chancellor.

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After reading law at the
Universities of Göttingen and Berlin, Otto von Bismarck entered Prussian
service and became a judicial administrator at Aachen. Bismarck gained
prominence in 1851 when he was chosen to represent Prussia in the Federal
diet.

In 1859 he was sent as
ambassador to Russia, from where he was recalled in March 1862 to become
ambassador to France. However, after six months in September
1862, Bismarck returned to Berlin as prime minister of Prussia whence he
devoted himself to the task of uniting Germany.

In the war of 1866 he
succeeded in defeating Austria and excluding it altogether from German
affairs.
The Franco-German War (1870-71) similarly ended with Prussian success.
Both were geared towards German unification.

This victory instigated the
kingdoms of Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden and Hesse to join the North German
Alliance, an alliance of Prussia and 17 northern German states created by
Bismarck in 1866, which led to the declaration of the German Empire
(Deutsches Reich) in 1870 and the proclamation of King William I of Prussia
as German Emperor in Versailles in 1871.

The imperial constitution
was declared in April 1871. Bismarck was appointed imperial
chancellor. The chancellor of the Reich was not responsible to
parliament but to the Emperor. The Reichstag, the imperial parliament,
was convened by universal, equal, direct and secret elections. Next to
the Emperor, it was the second most important institution. However,
its political influence was limited to the area of legislation. It
exerted only a minor influence over the formation of governments and
government policy.

Characteristic of the Reich
was the "government over the parties" and the restriction of the peoples'
representation to a position in which it was only able to express a
non-binding opinion on important political questions. The system was
described at the time as a "chancellor dictatorship".

It was Bismarck as Imperial
Chancellor who decided upon policy outlines and who proposed the appointment
and dismissal of state secretaries who were in turn responsible for the
administration of the ministries of the Reich.

Bismarck's greatest achievements, however, were the administrative reforms,
developing a common currency, a central bank, and a single code of
commercial and civil law for Germany.

Bismarck also became the
first statesman in Europe to devise a comprehensive scheme of social
security to counter the Social Democrats, offering workers insurance against
accident, sickness and old age.

In foreign affairs, he, as
a master of alliances and counter-alliances, presided over the Congress of
Berlin (1872) and this seemed to symbolise his paramount position as
mediator between the then great powers such as Russia, Austria, France,
Great Britain. An alliance with
Austria-Hungary (1879) marked a new period of conservatism in Bismarck's
foreign policy.

But by 1890 his policies began to come under attack. On March 18, 1890
two years after Emperor
William II's
accession, Bismarck was forced to resign. His last years were devoted
to composing his memoirs.

Article courtesy of German Embassy, India

Click here
to view brief film footage of Bismarck probably filmed in the 1890s